“Through this collaboration, we are finally able to see, with hard numbers, what we have suspected for years: veterans are huge assets to the clean energy economy," said Jaclyn Houser, advocacy director of Operation Free. "They bring unparalleled technical skills and a relentless focus on accomplishing the mission. And they view their work in clean energy as a continuation of their service."

In addition to statistics, the study also features examples of veterans working within the industry. Arlington, WA-based Outback Power, a 13-year-old designer and manufacturer of advanced power conversion electronics for renewable energy systems, was founded by three engineers, but soon began employing veterans from all armed forces branches at a higher average rate than both the rest of the solar industry and the U.S.

"According to company executives, veterans bring invaluable skills acquired during their service to their work in the solar industry," the report reads. "Those assets include a strong technical background, an ethic of teamwork, and leadership skills that contribute to the greater success of the company."

Photo credit: The Solar Foundation

The report also includes a first-person sidebar from Kyle Hock, a U.S. Army civil affairs sergeant in Operation Iraqi Freedom, who has returned with hopes of entering the solar industry.

"During my time in the service, I gained a deep appreciation for solar power. In Iraq, I saw ﬁrst hand how access to energy can either strengthen or cripple the security environment," Hock wrote. "There is a need for solar energy—both at home and abroad—to reduce our dependence on insecure energy sources and to make a positive change in people’s lives."

The study covers everything from pay scales to the industry's outlook on hiring. Nearly 62 percent of these companies—compared to 44 percent nationally—expect to add solar workers over the next year, while only 2 percent expect to scale back on employment.

“Our servicemen and women have made great sacrifices for our country and it is our responsibility to ensure that when they return home there are high-skill and well-paying jobs available," said California State Rep. Scott Peters, D-52, said. "The solar industry offers our veterans a unique opportunity to use the knowledge they learned serving our country in a rapidly growing sector that is vital to both our national security and economic future.”

Overall, the amount of solar energy deployed in the U.S. has grown by about 500 percent since 2008, according to the study.

"This report highlights the ways solar strengthens the US economy and our national security," said Clean Power Finance CEO Nat Kreamer, who has served as an intelligence officer for the U.S. Navy's Special Forces.

"Veterans are over represented in the solar industry because we know first-hand that clean, affordable domestic power makes America and the world safer."

The world's unregarded forests are at risk. Intact forest is now being destroyed at an annual rate that threatens to cancel out any attempts to contain global warming by controlling greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study.

As the world's population grows and the planet warms, demand for water will rise but the quality and reliability of the supply is expected to deteriorate, the United Nations said Monday in this year's World Water Development Report.

"We need new solutions in managing water resources so as to meet emerging challenges to water security caused by population growth and climate change," said Audrey Azoulay, director-general of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in a statement. "If we do nothing, some five billion people will be living in areas with poor access to water by 2050."

Despite a court-ordered injunction barring anyone from coming within 5 meters (approximately 16.4 feet) of two of its BC construction sites, opponents of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion sent a clear message Saturday that they would not back down.

Twenty-eight demonstrators were arrested March 17 after blocking the front gate to Kinder Morgan's tank farm in Burnaby, BC for four hours, according to a press release put out by Protect the Inlet, the group leading the protest.

Climate change is a big, ugly, unwieldy problem, and it's getting worse by the day. Emissions are rising. Ice is melting, and virtually no one is taking the carbon crisis as seriously as the issue demands. Countries need to radically overhaul their energy systems in just a few short decades, replacing coal, oil and gas with clean energy. Even if countries overcome the political obstacles necessary to meet that aim, they can expect heat waves, drought and storms unseen in the history of human civilization and enough flooding to submerge Miami Beach.

Trump has loudly declared his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement, but, behind the tweets and the headlines, U.S. officials and scientists have carried on working with international partners to fight climate change, Reuters reported Wednesday.

A Hollywood scriptwriter couldn't make this up. One day after new data revealed widespread toxic water contamination near coal ash disposal sites, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt announced a proposal to repeal the very 2015 EPA safeguards that had required this data to be tracked and released in the first place. Clean water is a basic human right that should never be treated as collateral damage on a corporate balance sheet, but that is exactly what is happening.